


The birds, the bees, and diagnoses

by onedaygonnabe_decadent



Series: Destiel Scenes [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5312489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedaygonnabe_decadent/pseuds/onedaygonnabe_decadent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's literally just Cas and Dean talking about their diagnoses. Nothing spectacular. Nothing graphic. I was bored. I'm terrible at titles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The birds, the bees, and diagnoses

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I'm pretty much just writing whatever comes to mind. I'm not working on anything long, just a bunch of little scenes. However, if you want to request something, just ask me, and we can work it out (: enjoy.

“C’mon Cas, let’s go sit at the table. Maybe those bees you like so much will come say hello,” Dean suggests, making a face while Cas grinned enthusiastically. Insects were low on his list of favorite things, unlike Cas, who liked bees almost as much as he liked the burgers on Thursday nights.

It was strange, Dean thought, but also oddly endearing. Better an obsession with bees than something creepy, like how the man in room thirty-seven liked to take pictures of everyone he talked to and pinned the portraits to his wall. Yeah, Dean much preferred the bees.

Cas sat at the table, hands reaching absently for the box of goodies placed on every table, looking around him in curiosity. He hadn’t seen this part of the garden before, had only seen a few trails and meadows. He hadn’t been here long enough to explore every nook and cranny of this place, but Dean had, and was eager to share his knowledge with the newbie.

Dean took the seat opposite the blue-eyed boy, reaching out to snatch one of those three-dimensional puzzles from the table before Cas’ long fingers could find it. The puzzle was one of the challenging ones with oddly shaped pieces with multiple solutions. Twisting his wrist, Dean broke it into four pieces, watching the red and blue sections blur together as he manipulated the pieces.

“Dean?” Cas was staring when Dean looked up, head tilted to the side in his puppy-like manner, baby blues flickering between Dean’s face and hands. He looked nervous. Dean wondered why.

“Yeah?”

Cas looked away, fiddling with his sleeves. A nervous habit. As Dean watched, his throat rippled with a hard swallow, and Cas seemed to steel himself, straightening his spine and broadening his shoulders.

Turning his gaze back on Dean, who was still watching him closely, Cas said, “If you don’t mind me asking…what’s it like?”

Normally, a vague question like that would need clarification, but Dean had been expecting this. Had been expecting it for a while now, ever since him and Cas had shared diagnoses. He was surprised it had taken Cas this long, really.

Cas had severe depression, coupled with mild anxiety and a fear going outside into society. He spent his life steeped in fear and sadness, constantly battling himself and his errant emotions, fighting to make himself feel a shred of happiness. He clung to emotion, swam in it, so it wasn’t surprising that he was interested in someone like Dean.

Dean had been diagnosed with alexithymia, a condition in which the logical brain wasn’t receiving signals from the emotional brain. Simply put, he couldn’t feel most emotions, if any. While the Alexithymia hadn’t been reason enough for his long-term stay at Crowley’s Psychiatric Hospital, the mild PTSD and the crippling fear of touch was.

“It feels empty, mostly,” Dean said after a long moment, struggling to find the right words, “you described depression as feeling too heavy, weighed down and drowning. I guess it’s like the opposite of that; like you’re a defective container, and anything you put in gets drains away.”

Cas made a noise to show he understood, even though he probably didn’t and probably never would.

Feeling like he hadn’t given enough detail, Dean looked away and frowned, fighting to find the correct words. His gaze fell on the puzzle pieces still clutched in his grasp, and he smiled faintly, reminded of something one of his first therapists had told him.

He held up the pieces for Cas to see. “Let me tell you what my old therapist said to me. This is you.” Dean snapped all four pieces together, showing Cas. “This is your brain, and your body, respectively.” He broke the puzzle in two.

He took the brain piece, snapping it in half again. “This is the ‘emotional’ brain, the right side. That’s where all the touchy-feely stuff happens.The sides of your brain are connected by a bridge of sorts. Sometimes the bridge gets screwed up and the information doesn’t transfer right. Sometimes the emotional brain doesn’t work right.”

Dean set those pieces aside, exchanging them for the other puzzle of two he had left on the table earlier. “Your body is broken into chemical and physical parts. The physical is the easy stuff, your arms and your organs. The chemical is the tricky one, the part that we’re here to fix. It’s hard, because human bodies are weird.”

He breaks the last chunk, and is left with four pieces again, scattered on the table before him. With a finger, he shifts the bits, twirling the physical body in its place. Waiting for Cas to absorb the information and understand.

Taking three of the puzzle pieces, leaving the ‘emotional brain’ spinning to the side, he pushes them together, snapping them into place. He holds the puzzle eye-level, studying the colors in the sunlight. Cas watches silently.

“I am complete without the last piece,” Dean says, then flipping the chunk around to show Cas the small hole in the center, “but there’s always something missing.”

Cas opens his hand when Dean reaches out, smoothly accepting the drop of the puzzle into his palm. His long fingers close over it, holding in the warmth for a moment before shifting to spin it between his hands.

Dean smiles slightly, picks up the last piece.

“It’s funny, because emotions are so important to our lives. We use emotion and logic interchangeably. _I like dogs_ because they make me feel safe. It’s wrong to hit dogs because they are innocent, stupid pets.” He flashes a cheeky grin at Cas’ disapproving face.

“But, just because you can’t put a name to the emotion and can’t properly identify it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. The physical aspects are there; heart racing for anger, a heavy feeling in your chest for sadness, a fire in your belly, et cetera,” Dean smirks and winks.

Cas snorts and rolls his eyes.

“I’m learning though. It’s hard to understand emotion when you don’t really feel it, but now I know that dopey look on your face whenever you talk about bees is _infatuation_.”

Dean scrambles away from the table, laughing when Cas hurriedly follows him, glaring. “And that’s your _angry face_.”

“That’s a bitch face. You must’ve learned that from Sam. You could give him a run for his money.”


End file.
